On Saturday, October 29, 2022 at 9:32:51 PM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
> On Sunday, October 30, 2022 at 12:56:04 AM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > On Friday, October 28, 2022 at 9:13:06 PM UTC-4, bill....@ieee.org wrote:
> > > On Saturday, October 29, 2022 at 8:10:35 AM UTC+11, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > On Fri, 28 Oct 2022 07:35:27 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred....@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >On Friday, October 28, 2022 at 7:46:49 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > >> On Thu, 27 Oct 2022 19:03:34 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >> >On Thursday, October 27, 2022 at 4:55:36 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > >> >> On Thu, 27 Oct 2022 08:45:11 -0700 (PDT), Fred Bloggs <bloggs..fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > <snip>
> > > > >> Anything any city or state does to reduce CO2 "pollution" is political theatre, an insignificant rounding error of what China and India and Africa are doing.
> > > > >
> > > > >China is building out all the coal plants in Africa.
> > > > >
> > > > >Now that even those places are realizing the dangers of instability arising from starvation and an uninhabitable environment, things like getting washed away by flooding and suffocating in extreme heat, they're making plans for radical changes to their energy infrastructure.
> > > >
> > > > You are terrified of everything.
> John Larkin claims not to feel fear, and imagines this to be a virtue. He confuses rational anxieties with panic attacks, becasuse he hasn't experienced either.\
> > > > Sea level has increased linearly since about 1870, at the end of the LIA.
> >
> > > The "little ice age" was rather earlier than than, and pretty much confined to the area around the Atlantic ocean.
> > I bet it wasn't. The LIA was caused by the slowing if not complete cessation of a major warming ocean current, the Gulf Stream. The abrupt addition of large amounts of fresh water at the terminus of the current puts the brakes on it, and that's just the basic physics of ocean circulation, it's not some guess.
> The Gulf Stream does flow through the Atlantic Ocean. The basic physics of ocean circulation is complex.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_multidecadal_oscillation
>
> The first paper on that only got published in1994. The Argo buoys
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo_(oceanography)
>
> are more recent, but there are only 4000 of them, and there is a lot of ocean to explore. We know about the surface currents like the Gulf Stream, but for the submerged return currents we need the Argo program.
> > The most serious consequence this kind of abrupt reconfiguration has is the damaging effects on marine life. Quite a bit of knowledge on the subject has been accumulated, and one very important takeaway from what we do know is how serious a disruption can be and how little mankind knows about it.. The ocean currents not only distribute warmth, they also distribute nutrients, and they're used by many migrating species ( fish and reptiles, not just birds, and probably insects) for navigation, forming an ingredient critical to the survival of many species.
> Ho hum.
> > Many species are sensitive to very minute environmental changes. The state of Alaska recently took the unprecedented action of waving off the mis-advice of federal environmental authority and canceling the fishing of King crabs and Snow crabs because of record low populations the wildlife biologists could only guess resulted from warmer waters. This is just one of numerous examples.
> > Another consequence related to sea level rise is the abrupt flooding of wetlands at a rate too fast for adaptation resulting in mass die-offs. The consequences of that kind of thing are beyond knowing and quantifying.
> They aren't beyond knowjedge, but you do have to collect a lot of information before you can hope to make sense of what's going on, and that can take a while.

They are in effect beyond knowledge. I've read more than few detailed descriptions of the wildlife biologists of their various projects and just exactly what they had to go through to reach science based conclusions. It takes a long time, years, and requires a lot of creativity and field work. And that's just for a smidgeon of understanding. For something comprehensive to fully evaluate substantially massive wetland loss, everything they need to know is just inaccessible. What they do know will happen, as has been happening, the flora drown in deeper waters, freshwater gets contaminated with salt and kills a lot of creatures- and the creatures who feed off those creatures, contaminated runoff from land is no longer filtered before it hits the ocean, arable land loss in low lying areas like India will have a ginormous impact on food supplies, fisheries will decline, - this list could get long. Just having a real rough idea of something, like your case, is insufficient to put mitigation into practice.

> > Biodiversity is more than just a nice-to-have and the subject of National Geographic Specials, it's absolutely essential to all life on Earth. By the time mankind feels it, it will be too late, for mankind.
> >
> > "Latest estimates from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization warn that more than half of the world’s marine species may stand on the brink of extinction by 2100. At a 1.1°C increase in temperature today, an estimated 60 percent of the world's marine ecosystems have already been degraded or are being used unsustainably. A warming of 1.5°C threatens to destroy 70 to 90 percent of coral reefs, and a 2°C increase means a nearly 100 percent loss - a point of no return."
> >
> > https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/ocean-impacts
> >
> > The impact dwarfs the loss of ratty, polluting, overcrowded cities/ disease distribution centers on the coast.
> > >
> > > The "linear" increase in sea level we've seen has been pretty much the expansion of our sea water as it has got warmer due to the global warming we've seen so far.
> > >
> > > The sea level rise we get warned about is the six metres of sea level rise tied up in the Greenland ice sheet and the extra three metres or so in the West Antarctic ice sheet. We get to see it when the ice sheets slide off into the ocean (which is the sort of thing that happened at the end of the last ice age, or a rather larger scale).
> > >
> > > > The danger to coastal cities is mostly from subsidence, from pumping out groundwater.
> > >
> > > That's the only danger that John Larkin is aware of. He isn't aware of much, and is blind to the depths of his own ignorance.
> > >
> > > > Of course the other danger is building expensive structures with sea views, on sand, in hurricane zones.
> > >
> > > I live in a expensive structure with an extensive view of Sydney Harbour. It's on the top of a hill, and ten metres of sea level rise wouldn't threaten the cars parked in the basement, though it would flood one of the places where we've bought gasoline, not to mention the Opera house (which is part of the view).
>
> --
> Bill Sloman, Sydney